ECNZ 2010 – Day 3 – Whangarei to North Shore

ECNZ 2010 – Day 3 – Whangarei to North Shore

We opened up the day with an easy 2km run to the pool and I did the 3km IM set (12 x (100IM / 150 Free – continuous). This was made slightly more challenging as the main 25m pool was closed this morning and we hade to swim in the wave pool – I took in a few mouthfuls. There didn’t seem to be too much madness in the pool this morning although Molina might be looking for some new toe nails after his 1000m bands only.

Today’s ride was another hum dinger as Scott would say. Like yesterday we had a massive amount of climbing with over 2000m in a 172km day. I wasn’t in a happy place for the first 3hrs of the day, the pace was above where I wanted to be but as we were getting buffered by some head winds I was reluctant to drop off. We had a few stretches on State Highway 1 (SHW) as well which wasn’t much fun (lots of traffic) and I was generally pretty grumpy until a place called Welsford. I then seemed to come right and did a nice pull on the front as we hit some doozey hills on SHW16. I’m beginning to think my 39/23 might not be enough for this camp. I was having to put in a bit of effort in places to keep it turning over. Lunch was appropriately timed for everyone and from there I more or less pulled the grupetto in for the last 60-70km. I simply tried to set a pace that was easy enough so as not to drop anyone (that wasn’t completely bonking) but fast enough that it wasn’t going to take forever to get in.

I then did a hoax 6km around the track to get my 10km for the day. I think it looked pretty silly as some high performance track athletes zipped up and down the sprint lanes. It was great to have Big E for company for a few laps.

I looked at the map of NZ last night and realised how little distance we have covered and how far we have to go. That said, my quads were feeling better tonight than this morning and my energy levels seem pretty good. The undercarriage is holding up well – I almost slid off my seat first thing this morning I had so much chamois cream and vas downstairs.

All in all a good day for everyone I think. Thanks to Annette Lee one of the production crew everyone’s bikes are now in full working order and the guys involved in the crash yesterday seem to be on the mend.

Summary

Swim 3km

Bike 172km (2000m climbing)

Run 10km